


Just When You Think It’s Too Late

by zelda_zee



Category: Lost
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Male Friendship, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 15:00:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2072658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Marc had never realized how much room Jack took up in his life until he vanished, and the emptiness he left behind felt like it would swallow him whole.</i> </p><p>Marc struggles to come to grips with the reality of his  best friend's disappearance. About the time he's beginning to feel okay again, the survivors of Flight 815 are found and things get difficult in a whole new way.</p><p>Originally posted 8/17/2007 for the Lost Luau.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just When You Think It’s Too Late

When he heard that Jack's flight had gone missing, Marc took the week off work. He couldn’t concentrate anyway and it’s not like that box company in Tustin was such a big account. He passed it off to a colleague and spent his days at Margo’s house, making her tea in the morning and martinis in the afternoon, holding her hand when she cried and being sympathetic when she ranted against the stupidity of airline and government officials and trying to tune her out when her anger spilled over onto her husband and son.

He didn’t really like Margo, never had. For most of his life he’d stood to the side and watched as she manipulated Jack, using his guilt and insecurities to her advantage. And Christian, well, don’t even get him started. Christian made Margo look like an amateur. He’d always thought it was funny how Jack couldn’t see it. From where Marc stood the whole messed-up family dynamic was crystal clear.

But regardless of his antipathy, he sat with Margo, day after day, side by side on her impeccably clean, terribly uncomfortable floral-patterned sofa, because he knew that Jack would be worried about her and that Jack would want him there. It seemed important right then to do what Jack would want. It created a connection between them that Marc was desperate to feel.

On the third day, Sarah stopped by. Marc went out back while she chatted with Margo. He couldn’t stand to be in the same room with the two of them. He thought if he heard either of them say so much as a single word that was critical of Jack, he’d explode. So he sat by the pool where it was safer and he smoked, an old habit the he fell back on in times of crisis. He knew he’d have to quit. Jack would be angry to hear Marc had used his disappearance as an excuse to start smoking again.

When Marc wasn’t at Margo’s he was at home, sitting in front of the television, flipping back and forth between CNN and Fox News and BBC and Al Jazeera. Conspiracy theories about Flight 815 proliferated, despite the fact that the logical explanation was that the plane had simply crashed into the ocean, though whether as a result of mechanical failure or sabotage was unknown. Planes did not simply disappear without a trace. It just wasn’t possible.

Except that appeared to be exactly what had happened to Flight 815.

Weeks went by and there was no news. Marc went back to work. He didn’t stop smoking. He had nightmares, waking again and again to the feeling of falling from a great height, his body covered in a cold sweat. He tried to get drunk, wanting his thoughts to fade to a blurred oblivion, but the alcohol only made him think of Christian and of Jack, and of how embracing Jack’s demons wasn’t the best response to his disappearance.

Marc knew that's not what Jack would have wanted.

He waited. They would find them, he thought. Maybe they crashed on a desert island. Maybe they somehow survived. Marc knew it was impossible. There were no islands in that part of the ocean for them to crash on and even if there were, no one survived a fall from 30,000 feet and if by a miracle they did survive the crash, how would they live?

Six months after the crash Marc could no longer convince himself that Jack was coming back. The news had stopped reporting on the story and things had gone back to normal, in the brutally dismissive way life has of carrying on, regardless of trauma and tragedy. Life is for the living, after all. The dead – and the missing – are soon forgotten in the inexorable forward press of time.

Marc sat on his living room floor and stared into the empty fireplace and wondered what he could have done to save Jack. He should have talked him out of going to Australia. He should have gone with him. He should have pushed harder when he’d suggested in their senior year of college that they move across country, go to New York, get an apartment, take a year or so before grad school to just live and have a little fun. If he’d gotten Jack away from the influence of his parents, helped him see what life was all about without the burden of duty and responsibility to others’ expectations - maybe then Jack would have said no when Margo ordered him to go.

Around and around his thoughts went. All the things that might have made a difference. Was there one thing that he hadn’t done that could have kept Jack safe? He knew there had to be. If he’d just tried harder, if he’d just been there for him, then maybe… maybe...

Ifs and maybes – Marc had too many of those.

None of it mattered. His best friend was gone. Marc had never realized how much room Jack took up in his life until he vanished, and the emptiness he left behind felt like it would swallow him whole.

Months went by and life without Jack became horribly normal. Before, Jack was here, now Jack is gone. He missed him, but eventually missing Jack became a permanent state and Marc couldn’t even remember what it had felt like before.

Just… sometimes it still ached, missing Jack.

Margo sold Jack’s condo. Marc helped her pack up his belongings. She let him keep most of the photos they found. She had the ones from Jack's childhood and wasn’t as interested in the later ones. One evening after she left Marc sat on a chair at Jack’s kitchen table and looked through photos chronicling years of fishing trips and skiing trips and parties and holidays and vacations. Pictures of Sarah, lots of those. And a surprising number of pictures of a sandy-haired man with a sweet smile and too flirtatious a gleam in his eye for Marc to mistake him for just a friend. The photos looked like they were about ten years old. Marc had never met the guy.

He’d found Jack’s porn stash earlier that day, hidden at the back of the bottom drawer of his dresser. It’s funny, he thought, as he thumbed through magazine after magazine full of glossy photos of muscle-bound men, how you can know someone for so many years and yet still not know them. He was only glad it hadn’t been Margo who found them. He couldn’t imagine what her reaction would have been.

He was surprised, but not deeply so. He felt like maybe he should be more shocked, but somehow it made so much about Jack make more sense to him. Mostly what he felt was sadness that Jack had kept this side of himself hidden from him, from everyone.

On September 22, 2005 Marc got a star tattooed on the inside of his left bicep. He knew it was a silly, sentimental gesture, but he did it anyway. He hadn’t expected it to actually make him feel better, but it did. His fiancée, Dana, pointed out that sometimes when he talked about Jack he would unconsciously brush his fingers over that spot.

The next June he and Dana got married. His friend Jeff was his best man. It would have been Jack. _Should_ have been Jack. He tried not to think about it, on this day that was supposed to be nothing but happiness. Still, for just a second, when Jeff rose to make his toast, he felt a flash of anger at Jack. _Damn him_ , thought Marc, before he could stop himself. _Damn him for not being here. For abandoning me._

Marc and Dana honeymooned in Hawaii. It was the first time Marc had been on a plane since Jack had gone missing. He looked out the window at deep blue sky, wisps of clouds floating below them, nothing but sea stretching to the horizon. Was this what Jack had seen before… before whatever happened, happened? Did he sit like this, a drink in his hand, his eyes trained on that thin line that separates earth and sky? Was there anyone beside him, perhaps someone he’d spoken to as he took his seat, perhaps someone who would clasp his hand as they fell? Jack had been so alone in life. Marc didn’t want to think that he had been alone when he died.

“Hey,” said Dana, taking his hand. He realized that his eyes were stinging. He blinked a few times, managed a smile. “You okay?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Sorry. Just… it’s Jack, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Dana. “It takes time, honey. But it’ll get easier.” Dana had lost her mother a few years ago.

“Okay.” He squeezed her hand. “Thanks.” He took a sip of his drink. “Doesn’t it seem wrong though, that it gets easier? When someone dies, don’t you think that it shouldn’t ever get better?”

“You can’t help it, Marc. You move on. You can’t stay stuck in one place with them. It isn’t healthy, and you know Jack wouldn’t want that.”

“I know,” he said again. “I won’t.” He turned back to the window, looking out into the endless blue. “I can’t remember his voice,” he said, but Dana had put her headphones back on and didn’t hear him.

Margo called him in August. It was a Sunday and he and Dana had friends over and were barbecuing out by the pool. It was after dark, but the temperature was still over 90 degrees, and it seemed like half the conversation that evening had revolved around the heat. At one point he’d gone into the kitchen for a beer and realized he hadn’t thought about Jack all day. It was the first time that had happened.

And then the phone rang and it was Margo calling to tell him that the impossible had come to pass. Jack had been found, along with nearly forty other survivors of the crash. At first Marc thought it was someone playing some kind of cruel trick, because how could that be true? And then, when Margo convinced him that it was real, well… it still couldn’t be true.

He hung up the phone and slid slowly down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, his legs splayed out in front of him. _Jack was alive_. Try as he might, he just couldn’t believe it. It was impossible. How had he survived? Where had he been all this time? Margo didn’t have the answers. She had said that they would have to wait for Jack to explain it all to them. He would be in Hawaii within the week.

He walked out onto the patio in a daze and announced, “Jack’s alive.” Then he went inside, took down the bottle of bourbon from the liquor cabinet and went into his office, closing the door behind him. Later that night, when Dana came to find him, he wasn’t drunk, despite having polished off half the bottle. It was as if he couldn’t get drunk, no matter how hard he tried. Dana took the bottle out of his hand, ushered him into the bedroom, pulled the covers up over him.

Marc lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling. It was popcorn textured, something neither of them liked and that they’d meant to have redone and just hadn’t gotten around to yet. He should look into that, get some bids. Maybe he could do the demo himself, save a little money that way.

The hours ticked by. He didn’t sleep. Finally he got up, wandered around the house for a while, then pulled on a sweatshirt and went out to sit in the yard and watch the sky turn orange and pink with the dawn.

 _Jack is living this day, just as I am_ , he thought. _At this very moment, Jack is alive_. Maybe he watched the dawn break, or will watch it, wherever he is. Maybe he’s talking or laughing right now. Maybe he’s with someone he cares for. Maybe he’s still asleep, dreaming – or maybe sitting alone in the dark, wondering whether the people he knew in another life had forgotten him.

The announcement hit the news that day and suddenly it was all that anyone was talking about. Marc watched the profiles of the survivors this time. He’d ignored those stories back when the plane disappeared, because all he had been focused on was Jack. But now, he knew that these were the people Jack had been with for the past two years, trapped on some uncharted island. There were all kinds of unconfirmed reports of secret organizations and experimental communities, some kind of Utopian foundation that was semi-legit but was maybe in league with some other organizations with questionable and possibly unsavory connections. It was all very unclear and confused, and if the conspiracies had been wild when the plane disappeared, those were nothing compared to now.

Marc tried to wrap his mind around his life-long best friend being involved in something so vast and ominous-sounding. Jack, with his drive and his passion and his unquenchable need to make things right and his fucking impractical idealism – how had he fared under circumstances which – even if every wild news report was off-base – must have been, at the least, unimaginably stressful and harrowing.

He watched as the other survivors were profiled, the ones who’d made it and the ones who had apparently died sometime between the plane crash and the rescue. They sounded like a planeload of trouble, like something that could only have been dreamed up by some hack writer’s fevered imagination. Criminals and crazy people and drug addicts – murderers and con men and convicts, rock stars and warlords. He shuddered, imagining Jack mixed up with those people. Jack was no angel, and he wasn’t one to shy away from a fight, but still.

His phone started ringing about mid-morning. He talked to the press, because if he didn’t they’d just find someone who would, someone who didn’t know Jack as well, who might not have his best interest at heart.

Margo went to Hawaii to meet Jack. Family only, she said. Friends were not invited, even friends who were closer than family. So Marc waited.

A week. The longest week of his life. The only one that came close was the first week Jack had been gone.

He called Margo the morning after their return date.

“I don’t know if you should come by,” she said, whispering into the phone. “He’s not – he’s changed, Marc.”

“Let me talk to him,” Marc said.

“He’s sleeping. I don’t want to wake him.”

“Fine, but I’m coming over this afternoon. If he’s still asleep I’ll just wait for him to wake up.”

Jack hadn’t awakened by the time Marc got there, so he asked Margo to let him know when he did. He set himself up in Christian’s study with his laptop and his Blackberry and tried to get some work done. He didn’t accomplish much.

At about five, with still no sign of Jack, he ventured upstairs. The house was silent but for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. He remembered it being like this in his childhood, always so quiet, a sharp contrast to his own house where the radio and the television were always on – usually at the same time – and his mom often had a friend or two in the kitchen, smoking and laughing and gossiping over iced tea, and Sandra with her piano and Joshua with his drums and then his own saxophone practice, and when his dad came home from work it seemed like everything got twice as loud with his deep, rumbling voice in the mix. When he was younger Marc had wondered why Jack always wanted to go to his house to play when Jack’s was so much nicer, but now, as he crept carefully down the long, dim upstairs hallway, he thought he understood.

Marc paused in front of the door to the guest room, the one that had once been Jack’s. He didn’t want to wake him by knocking, so he turned the knob and pushed the door open.

Jack wasn’t asleep. He was sitting in a chair, staring out the window.

“Jack?”

Jack turned slowly toward him. His movements were sluggish, and Marc wondered whether he was drugged. He stared at Marc out of dark, sunken eyes. He looked exhausted and far too thin and something else, hollow or haunted – or both – but he was _Jack_ and that was all that mattered. Jack got to his feet, moving like an old man and took a single step toward Marc.

“My God, Jack,” Marc said, moving forward to wrap Jack in a close embrace. “Jesus, Jack, it’s really you.” He knew he was holding on too tightly, but he couldn’t help it, he just wanted to feel him, feel that he was real, warm and breathing and _alive_. After a moment Jack’s arms went around Marc’s shoulders and they just stood silently, clinging to each other, swaying slightly back and forth. Marc was crying and he didn’t care, he didn’t care about anything except that Jack had somehow returned from the dead, that he was really here.

Marc pulled back so that he could look him in the eye. His hair was short - he must’ve gotten it cut in Hawaii. He hadn’t shaved though, and Marc was startled at the amount of gray in his beard. His face had more lines, and was tanned dark by the tropical sun, faint freckles sprinkled across his nose. Jack didn’t smile, in fact, he looked like he couldn’t figure out what expression to wear, so he just looked back at Marc, sad and tired and, Marc thought, scared.

“It’s okay,” Marc said, gripping Jack’s shoulders firmly, surprised at the bulk of muscle there. He was so thin, yet even more muscled than he’d been before. “Everything’s gonna be okay now, Jack.”

Jack laughed then, a small, bitter chuckle that sounded all wrong. “Is it?” He stepped away, his eyes moving nervously around the room, before coming back to Marc.

“Sure,” said Marc. “It’s gonna be fine.” Jack just stared at him, something desperate in his expression, as Marc continued. “Damn, I missed you, bro. You have no idea the hell I went though, worrying and wondering what had happened to you. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“Didn’t think I’d see you again either,” Jack mumbled, dropping his gaze to the floor.

“Jack!” Margo called from the stairwell. “Jack! Are you up? I heard voices.” She appeared in the doorway. “Oh! Hello, Marc,” she said, as if she’d forgotten that he was there. She looked at Jack. “I see you’re awake. Dale and Kimmy are on their way over with the kids and Aunt Shirley. They’re all dying to see you. And there was a call from a Captain Stearns at Homeland Security, goodness knows what he wants, and a woman from the INS as well, shoot, I can’t recall her name. Oh well, it’s all written down. And gracious, the press! They won’t leave you alone. They keep calling and I just tell them you’re resting, but they won’t stop. There are actually reporters camped out by the front gate!” She leaned forward and gave Jack a kiss on his stubbled cheek. “You’re going to be so famous, darling. Now why don’t you get yourself presentable before the family gets here? I’ve sent Inez to Whole Foods, we’ll have a buffet on the patio. You’re welcome to stay of course, Marc.”

“Thanks,” said Marc, glancing uneasily at Jack, who hadn’t said a word or made any indication he was listening as Margo chattered on. “Um, we’ll be down in a minute, Margo.”

Jack didn’t move when she left, just stared fixedly at the empty doorway. Finally his eyes moved to Marc, filled with helpless confusion. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I – please. I can’t.”

Marc felt his stomach do a slow roll. Jack was in no shape to deal with company and officials and the barrage of questions that would be thrown at him by both of them.

“Okay,” said Marc. “You don’t have to, Jack. You don’t have to do this on your own. Do you want to come stay with me?”

Jack nodded dumbly, still frozen in place. “And Dana,” Marc added. “You know we got married, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Sorry, I forgot. Mom told me. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, man. Why don’t you just grab your stuff and we’ll get out of here.”

“But my mom…”

“I’ll deal with her, Jack.”

This, Marc thought, as he descended the stairs in search of Margo, was not going to be easy. In fact, he was starting to suspect that nothing about Jack’s return was going to be easy.

Jack moved into their guest room and Marc ran interference between Jack and his mother and Jack and the government and Jack and the lawyers and Jack and his former employers and Jack and the press. In fact, he pretty much ran interference between Jack and the rest of the world, while Jack lay on the bed with the shades drawn and the lights off, emerging only for meals and to shuffle down the hall to the bathroom.

“He needs time,” he told Dana, when she worried that they were enabling Jack into becoming a recluse. “He needs to feel safe.”

Marc didn’t question Jack about what had happened on that island. It didn’t take him long to realize that whatever had occurred in the time Jack had been gone had been far more traumatic than Marc had imagined. Jack barely spoke, barely acknowledged their presence. He seemed lost in a haze of memory and hopelessness, hardly able to function, like a ghost in his own skin.

Marc helped him re-establish himself, although between the government and their lawyers, it was easier than one would expect. In less than a month, Jack had a house, a truck, a job, several therapists, new furniture and clothes, and a goldfish. The last was Dana’s idea. She thought Jack needed something to care for, and was working her way up to getting him a dog. Marc had encouraged her, given Jack’s state of emotional turmoil, to start small.

Marc dropped by the second night that Jack was in his new digs, with a bag of Chinese food and a six-pack of Coke and the cardboard box full of Jack’s photos. He put it down on the kitchen counter.

“I saved them,” he said, as Jack lifted off the lid. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Most of them aren’t even of me.” He got down a couple of plain white plates from the cupboard. Almost everything Jack now owned had come from IKEA. He and Dana had picked it all out, agreeing without even discussing it that a shopping trip such as that was far beyond Jack’s abilities at the moment.

Jack flipped through the photographs, his fingers slowing as he got to the pictures of the man with the flirtatious eyes.

“You looked at them?” Jack asked, a hesitant tone creeping into his voice.

“I did.” Marc watched him steadily. Jack was staring at a photo, one that Marc remembered. The man was smiling into the camera, happy and relaxed, with a fond look on his face. “Who is he?”

“He was a – friend. I hadn’t – haven’t seen him in a long time,” Jack said quietly.

“From before Sarah?”

“Yes.”

“You know, I helped Margo clean out your condo before she sold it,” Marc said conversationally as he opened boxes of Chinese food, getting forks and napkins out, scooping food out onto the plates. “She packed up the kitchen and the living room and I packed everything else.” He watched Jack carefully. “I packed up the bedroom, Jack.” Jack was still staring at the photo is his hand, but Marc saw a tremor go through him. “Why didn’t you tell me? Did you really think you couldn’t trust me? That I’d think less of you or something?”

Jack shook his head. He was quiet for so long that Marc didn’t think he was going to get an answer. He had picked up the plates and started toward the dining room when he heard Jack’s voice, soft and stumbling over the words. “I don’t know. I just – I never told _anyone_ \- it wasn’t that I didn’t trust you.” He tapped the photo. “It was why I lost him. He got tired of lying about us, and I couldn’t tell the truth. So he left me. And then I met Sarah, and… and... when it ended, I just - I couldn’t stand for anyone to know the real reason.”

“What about now?” Marc asked.

Jack laughed humorlessly. “Not likely to matter anymore,” he said, so low that Marc almost didn’t hear him.

“What do you mean? Of course it matters,” Marc said, carrying their plates to the table and taking a seat. Jack followed, sitting across from Marc. He picked up his fork and started pushing food around on his plate, not really eating any of it. “I mean, it’s up to you. It’s your life and I’m not about to tell you how to live it. I just – I want to know _you_ , man. You don’t have to keep a whole big chunk of your life under wraps. I wish I’d known that guy – what’s his name?”

“Drew.”

“Drew. I wish I’d known Drew, seen how you guys were together, that’s all.” They ate for a moment in silence.

“We were good together,” Jack said to his plate. “I think you would’ve liked him.”

“I’m sure I would’ve,” Marc said gently. “Look, I know now isn’t the best time for all this,” Marc gestured with his fork. “You’ve got a lot going on without having to deal with more. I’m just saying, it doesn’t matter to me, Jack, as long as you’re happy. I just want you to be happy.”

Jack looked at him strangely, as if “happy” wasn’t a word he even knew the meaning of any longer.

“Sure. I’ll – I’ll try.” He smiled, the only smile that Marc had seen on Jack’s face since he returned, a smile that came nowhere near reaching his eyes.

Marc had been correct in his assumption that nothing about Jack’s return was going to be easy. It wasn’t easy for Marc, but it was even harder for Jack. Marc couldn’t understand what the problem was – he thought maybe no one could, only the other poor souls who had shared those two long years of lost time with Jack.

Marc struggled to stay connected, through the alcohol and the drugs and the obsession and the days on end when Jack would just disappear as if the earth had swallowed him up. When he was tempted to turn away, to write Jack off as a hopeless case, Marc would remind himself how it had felt the day he realized he couldn’t remember the sound of Jack’s voice, or the year Jack’s birthday came and went and he didn’t even notice it, or how he had worried that Jack had been alone and afraid when he died.

Now, Jack wasn’t dead. Maybe he wasn’t quite living, but he was alive, so Marc clung to a thin thread of hope that someday, somehow, Jack would be all right.

Until then, he tried to keep Jack from falling apart, a fruitless effort. When Dana finally asked Marc to tell Jack not to come to the house anymore, Marc began stopping by Jack’s place a couple nights a week. Sometimes Jack would be sober enough to talk, sometimes not. Sometimes he’d rave about the island, about needing to go back, or babble incoherently about things Marc didn’t understand, smoke and blood and voices in the trees. Sometimes he’d weep, wracking, breathless sobs that wrung Marc’s heart. Sometimes he’d just be passed out on the bed or the couch, and Marc would try to clean up the worst of the mess, take out the overflowing garbage, do the dishes. Jack had stopped going to therapy, stopped taking his meds, except the ones he was using to self-medicate, whiskey and Oxycodone. He lost his job. Marc thought of Christian, tried not to make the obvious comparisons.

How do you watch someone self-destruct? How do you watch them throw everything away? There wasn’t much Marc could do except check to see that Jack hadn’t O.D.ed, try to get some food into him and make sure his bills were paid. He showed up at Jack's every Tuesday and Thursday at six o’clock, just to let Jack know that he wasn’t going anywhere, that despite everything Jack had done to push him away, he was still here.

It was almost seven on a Tuesday night and he was running late. He knocked on Jack’s door with the usual sense of foreboding and anxiety, knowing that whatever state Jack might be in, it was bound to be an unpleasant hour or so before he could leave. He nearly dropped his bag of groceries in surprise when the door was opened by an unfamiliar man, tall, with shaggy blond hair and a split and swollen lip and blue eyes that cut right into him.

“Yeah?” the man said.

“Who’re you?” blurted Marc in confusion.

The man raised an eyebrow and looked Marc up and down. “I might ask you the same thing.”

Southern, strong accent. He looked familiar. Marc was sure he’d seen him somewhere before.

“Where’s Jack?” Marc asked, trying to see around the guy and into the house.

“Now, why would Jack’s whereabouts be any of your business?” The stranger folded his arms in front of him and planted himself in the middle of the doorway.

Marc decided to play the game, since he obviously wasn’t getting into the house unless this guy, who seemed to have appointed himself as Jack’s guard dog, let him in.

“I’m Marc Silverman. Jack’s friend. He’ll be expecting me if… if…” He didn’t want to say “if he’s conscious” or “if he has any idea what day it is”, so he just let it hang.

The man gave him a hard stare, and then said. “I’m Sawyer,” and stepped back to let Marc in and he suddenly remembered where he'd seen him - the profiles he’d watched on TV of the survivors – James “Sawyer” Ford, convict and con man and all-around bad guy.

“I know you,” Marc said.

“Oh, I doubt that,” Sawyer said with a smirk, taking the bag of groceries out of Marc’s hands and heading toward the kitchen. Marc followed him, noting that the house wasn’t as much of a disaster as usual. Jack’s maps and notebooks were still laying around, but otherwise it looked neater than he’d seen it since Jack moved in. And the shades were open and for once the air didn’t stink like garbage and alcohol.

“You were on the island,” said Marc. “With Jack. You’re one of the survivors.”

“Got it in one, Red. Me and Jack shared two deliriously happy years on Craphole Island with forty of our nearest and dearest. Good times. I’d offer you a drink, but I dumped it all. Water?”

“Sure,” said Marc. “You dumped the booze?” He couldn’t imagine Jack letting someone dump out his liquor, though he’d never had the nerve to try.

“Yeah, and it was not a pretty scene, let me tell you. Lots of yellin’ and threatenin’ and some busted furniture too. Oh, and that,” Sawyer nodded to a cabinet on the opposite wall, the wood of the door splintered and broken. “Jack’s fist. This too.” He pointed to his lip.

“Jack punched you?” Marc said, wondering at Sawyer’s nonchalant attitude toward getting socked in the jaw.

Sawyer handed him a glass of water. “Yep. Had a nice, familiar feelin' to it. Made me all nostalgic for the good ol’ days. Cheers.” Sawyer took a long swallow. “Yeah,” he sighed. “Jack gets _real_ testy when you come between him and his liquor. Guess he takes after his daddy that way.”

“You knew Christian?” Marc asked incredulously. He didn’t know what to make of this guy. He seemed completely at home here in Jack’s house, in Jack’s life, and yet in all the time since Jack had returned, Marc had never heard Jack speak of him.

“Met him once,” Sawyer glanced at Marc and then away. “Long story.”

Marc decided to let that one go for now. “What about the drugs?” Marc asked. “You know about that?”

“It’s pretty hard to miss it, what with the doc eatin’ Killers like they’re candy. I ain’t done nothin’ ‘bout it yet. I figured, one thing at a time. We’ll taper ‘em off once he gets a bit of the booze outta his system.”

“You think he’ll go along with that?” Marc asked doubtfully.

Sawyer shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe. Worth a try, don’t you think?”

Marc frowned at him, trying to make sense of this sudden intrusion into Jack’s life. It was as if Sawyer had just appeared and taken over within the space of a few days. Marc leaned back against the counter and studied the man. He was physically intimidating, definitely someone who was a match for Jack, and there was a toughness to him that spoke of close acquaintance with the rough side of life. Marc could easily imagine Sawyer holding his own in a fight.

He could sense that Sawyer could be charming. It was there in the breezy, jokey way words fell from his lips, the easy smile, the casual body language. He’d have to be charming, Marc thought, to pull off the kinds of cons he did, recalling the details from those TV reports. He wondered if Sawyer’s face was too recognizable these days for him to make a living the way he used to, though he had a feeling he’d be able to figure a way to turn his fame into an asset rather than a liability.

And while Sawyer wasn’t being exactly friendly, he wasn’t being antagonistic either, which was what Marc would have expected from the news stories. He seemed to be giving Marc the benefit of the doubt, for the moment anyway, so Marc figured he’d take his cues from Sawyer and try to do the same.

“He’s fucked up, but he’s still Jack,” Sawyer continued. “Bein’ a junkie and a drunk ain’t exactly what he’s cut out for, if you know what I mean.”

Marc agreed, but he wasn’t quite ready to go along with Sawyer acting like he had the right to be here in Jack’s house, in Jack's life.

“What are you up to, Sawyer? Are you staying here? It’s just that I’ve been looking after Jack – as much as anyone has been, I mean – since he got back and I just want to be sure – that is –”

“Are you askin’ me my intentions toward Jack?” Sawyer grinned, a devilish glint in his eye. “I assure you, they’re completely honorable.”

Marc didn’t say what he was thinking, that he doubted that Sawyer had ever had an honorable intention in his life, but it must have been written on his face.

“Yeah, I know. Not fuckin’ likely, right?” Sawyer sighed. “How long ’ve you known Jack?”

“We met in grade school.”

Sawyer’s eyebrows shot up. “Long time.”

Marc nodded.

“So, you’ve got his back,” Sawyer said. “That’s good. Jack needs that. On the island there was always someone who had Jack’s back. The someone changed over time, but there was always someone. Wasn’t never me though.”

“No?”

“Nope. Not me. I was right there in front of him, right where he could see me.” He gave Marc a sharp look. “Jack needs someone to push him, and he needs to push back – needs someone who can take bein’ pushed. _That_ was me. I took what he dished out and threw it right back at him.” Sawyer put his empty glass on the counter top and gripped the edge of it, tight. “That’s what he needs right now. Not someone to watch his back. Someone to stand right where he can see him and push.”

“And you’ve cast yourself in that role? You think you can just waltz in here and take over Jack’s life?”

A little smile quirked the corner of Sawyer’s lip. “I think I probably can.” When Marc scowled and opened his mouth to protest, Sawyer held up his hands. “Hey, I’m just repayin’ a favor or three.”

“Oh, yeah? What favor?”

“Doc there, he saved my life, more than once. A few times, actually. You ever have anyone save your life, Red?”

Marc shook his head. He wanted to tell Sawyer not to call him that, but he also wanted to hear what the man was going to say, so he held his tongue.

“Weird experience, let me tell you. You can tell yourself it don’t mean nothin’ all you want, but comes a time you gotta admit that it does. Back then, I didn’t give a shit whether I lived or died. Jack cared more about keepin’ me alive than I did, to tell the truth.” Sawyer paused and took a deep breath. “These days, I’m pretty glad to be alive, pretty glad ol’ Doc managed to pull me through. I heard through the grapevine that he'd gone off the deep end, so I came to see for myself. Turns out he’s at a place where he don’t really care if he lives or dies. It’s karma, right?”

“So, you think you’re gonna save him?” Marc asked in disbelief. He couldn’t imagine a more unlikely savior.

“I think no one’s gonna save Jack but Jack. He just needs to be pushed in the right direction.”

Marc looked at Sawyer for a long minute and Sawyer looked right back. Marc didn’t trust him, not after the things he’d heard, but grudgingly and to his surprise, he was maybe starting to like him, just a little.

“You’re not what I expected,” he said.

Sawyer laughed. “Watched the news reports, eh? Yeah, I got cast as the big bad wolf. Not that I dispute the facts. It’s just – facts never tell the whole story, do they?”

“No they don’t,” Marc agreed. “Why should I trust you not to just rip Jack off?”

Sawyer shrugged. “No reason you should, and I ain’t gonna waste my time tryin’ to convince you. Anyway, it’s kinda up to Jack whether to trust me or not. Why don’t you just ask him?”

“Okay,” said Marc. “I will.”

“He’s in the bedroom,” said Sawyer, turning his back and starting to unpack the bag of groceries Marc had brought.

Jack’s room was dark and Marc could only make out a blanket-covered lump lying on the bed. He stood in the doorway for a moment, letting his eyes adjust before he ventured in to sit on the edge of the bed. He put his hand where he thought Jack’s shoulder would be, giving him a little shake. He hated to wake him, but they needed to talk.

“I’m awake.” Jack pushed the covers back and looked up at Marc. In the dim light, his eyes were shadowed, his features indistinct, but it wasn’t so dark that Marc couldn’t see Jack’s smooth jaw line. The beard was gone. If nothing else, he was grateful to Sawyer for that. “Oh,” he said when he saw it was Marc. “I forgot… it’s Thursday?” His voice was scratchy, catching in his throat and still slightly slurred.

“Tuesday,” corrected Marc, handing Jack the glass of water that was sitting on the nightstand.

“Oh. Right.” Jack leaned up on his elbow and took a drink. There was something else different, in addition to the missing beard, Marc thought, and then he identified it. The sour smell of alcohol that he’d associated with Jack for months now was gone.

“I met Sawyer,” he said. Jack looked at him. “Interesting guy.”

Jack nodded. “You could say that.” He paused. “Was he… um… okay to you?”

“Yeah, I guess he was. Mostly.”

Jack snorted. “He must really like you then.”

Marc took the glass from him, returned it to the nightstand, and Jack lay down on his back with an exhausted-sounding sigh.

“Jack, I need to ask you – are you okay with him being here? Because if you want him to go, I’ll make sure he leaves.” He didn't add that he had no idea how he'd accomplish that.

Jack reached out and patted Marc’s arm. “Thanks. But it’s okay. Really,” he said, noting Marc’s dubious expression. “I don’t know why he’s here, but it’s okay if he stays.” Jack closed his eyes, quiet for so long that Marc thought he might have drifted off to sleep. “Me and Sawyer go _way_ back,” Jack mumbled.

Marc blinked, feeling an uncomfortable little tug in his gut. Jack had only known Sawyer for something like three years. He’d known Marc practically his whole life.

“Is he – Jack, are you sure you can trust him? I mean, he’s a – a crook, right? I don’t want you to get ripped off, man.”

“He can have anything he wants,” Jack said, meeting Marc’s eyes. “I told him.”

“And what did he say to that?” Marc asked.

“'Thanks but no thanks, Jackass.' I believe those were his exact words.” Jack smiled a little. “I also told him he could stay as long as he wants to.”

“Oh-kay. If that’s what you want, Jack. Okay.”

“It’s – it’s hard to explain.” Jack kept his eyes closed as he spoke. “It’s the island – nothing makes sense that goes back to that. Just – trust me on this, okay?” Jack rolled onto his side, pulling the covers up. “Sawyer stays,” he said into his pillow.

“All right. He stays.” If that’s what Jack wanted, Marc wasn’t going to argue. “I’ll see you on Thursday, Jack. Hang in there.”

Sawyer was sitting on the couch, reading a paperback, wire-rimmed reading glasses propped on his nose. It almost made Marc smile, because it was that last thing he’d expected to find him doing.

“Well?” Sawyer asked, looking up from his book.

“I come by on Tuesdays and Thursdays at six.” Marc said. Sawyer nodded. "I’ve been bringing groceries, should I still do that?”

“I can do the shopping,” Sawyer said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Marc gave Sawyer his card. “That’s got my cell on it. Call me if you need me. Anytime, okay?”

“Okay.” Sawyer looked at him, and Marc was surprised to see what looked like relief in his eyes. He got Sawyer’s cell number, and left him the number of Jack’s doctor and the therapists he no longer saw and then he left, feeling just a bit lighter than he’d ever felt leaving that house.

A week later Sawyer asked Marc if he wanted to stay for dinner, and after a moment’s hesitation he said yes. He and Jack sat at the table on the patio while Sawyer grilled burgers and corn on the cob. Jack didn’t say much, but Sawyer kept up the conversation, telling a series of outrageous stories about his youth that Marc could only assume were completely untrue. That didn’t keep him from laughing at them though, especially when Jack laughed, because it was just so damn good to hear Jack laugh that he had to join in.

The burgers were good enough that he almost didn’t miss having a beer with them. He figured he’d better get used to that. There’d be a lot of coffee and soda in his future, if he was going to be Jack’s friend.

After dinner Sawyer disappeared. When Marc asked Jack where he’d gone, he shrugged.

“I’m guessing he’s giving us time alone. He’s like that. Plus, he’s reading some book that he says is a real page-turner.” He smiled, one that reached his eyes. “He reads a lot.”

“He’s full of surprises,” Marc said. He was starting to get an inkling that there was more going on here than he’d realized. Jack’s smile was a dead giveaway.

“That he is,” said Jack. They were quiet for a few moments. Normally, Jack would be staring at his beer bottle, fingers idly picking away at the label, but instead he was fiddling restlessly with his fork. Marc recalled how Margo would scold Jack for fidgeting at the dinner table when they were kids. Despite her efforts, he never really outgrew it.

“Next week,” Jack said, breaking the silence. “Monday. I’m, uh. I’m going to start quitting the, uh. Oxy.” His eyes cut to Marc, then quickly away.

“That’s great, Jack,” Marc said. “That’s really awesome. If there’s anything I can do, man. I’m totally here for you. I’m just – I’m really glad, okay? I’m glad you’ve made that decision.”

“Yeah, well. We’ll see. Gonna try.”

“You can do it.” He smiled at Jack. “Are you kidding? When you set your mind to something? I _know_ you can do it.”

“Marc.” Jack looked at him, shaking his head, a sad smile on his face, and he looked so exposed, so vulnerable, that it made Marc’s eyes sting, made him swallow around the sudden lump in his throat. “Why – after all this – after everything – why in God’s name would you still believe in me?”

Marc met Jack’s eyes and it was _Jack_ there, not the shell of a man that had been inhabiting Jack’s body since he got back.

“I don’t know. I think maybe I’ve just believed in you for so long now that I wouldn’t know how to do anything else. I know you’ll make it out the other side, Jack. I just know it.”

It took two very long and difficult weeks for Jack to get off the drugs. Marc stopped by almost every night, either bringing take-out or something to make for dinner. Jack was twitchy and anxious, but obviously making an effort to keep it together. Sawyer had dark circles under his eyes and a pinched look on his face, but when Marc asked how he was doing he shrugged it off.

“I’ve been worse.” He nodded toward Jack, curled up on the couch in the living room watching TV. As they watched, he jerked, a spasm gripping his muscles. “I’ve been where he is. Not Oxy, but – well, it was a long time ago, but yeah. I know what he’s goin’ through.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” said Marc. He meant it, too.

Sawyer shot him a surprised look, quickly masking it over with sarcasm. “Bet you’re just shocked the silver ain’t gone missin’ yet.”

“Oh,” said Marc blandly. “You noticed that I’ve been checking?”

Sawyer blinked at him and Marc had to laugh at his indignant expression. It was the first time he’d been able to put one over on Sawyer. It felt kind of good.

A month later, Jack and Sawyer came to dinner. Dana hadn’t met Sawyer and she hadn’t seen much of Jack since he’d gotten straight. Sawyer sat down on the couch in the living room and Jack sat down right next to him, so their knees were touching and Dana shot Marc a look over their heads that clearly said _why the hell didn’t you tell me?_ But Marc wasn’t about to spill Jack’s secrets for him. When and if to tell was up to Jack. And now, apparently, up to Sawyer as well.

“Jack’s goin’ back to work,” announced Sawyer over dinner. “What?” he said, when Jack glared at him. “It’s good news, I wanted to share it.”

“Are you going back to St. Sebastian’s, Jack?” asked Dana.

Jack shook his head. “That’s not really an option now. And anyway, I don’t want to go back there. We don’t need that kind of money,” _We_ , thought Marc, “so… I got a job at the county hospital.” His gaze flicked to Sawyer’s and Marc saw him give an almost imperceptible nod. “I’m not doing surgery, at least not yet.” He didn’t say anything more, but Marc had seen enough to know that Jack’s hands were nowhere near steady enough to perform surgery. No telling if they ever would be again.

“That sounds great, Jack,” Dana said. “We’re happy for you.” She raised her glass. “To your new job.” They all raised their glasses. “And to finally getting to meet you,” she said to Sawyer. “I hope we’ll be seeing a lot of you in the future.”

“Guess that’s kind of up to Jack,” Sawyer said.

“You’ll be seeing a lot of him,” Jack said firmly and Marc couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought he saw Jack take Sawyer’s hand under the table.

As they were leaving that night, Marc and Jack stood in the front yard, watching as Dana explained to Sawyer the benefits of drought-resistant planting. Sawyer, Jack told Marc, had been wanting to re-landscape their yard.

“ _Our_ yard?” Marc repeated. “So you and Sawyer – you’re official now? Like, officially together?”

“Yeah,” Jack said as he watched Sawyer squat down to sniff at a flowering shrub. “We are. We’re official.” He shot Marc a sidelong glance. “He makes me happy.”

“Good,” said Marc. “You deserve to be happy.”

“I thought it was too late for that,” Jack sighed. At that moment Sawyer looked up, his face breaking into a smile when he saw Jack watching them.

Marc draped an arm over Jack’s shoulders and gave him a little squeeze. “It’s never too late, Jack,” he said quietly. 

Jack glanced sideways at him, then looked down. "I never thanked you for all you did," he said. "I think maybe I was awful to you. You didn't deserve that."

"You were never awful to me," Marc said. "And you don't have to thank me. I only did what you'd have done in my place."

Jack shook his head. "I don't know about that."

"Well, I do." Marc had no doubt Jack would have done the same for him. More, probably, knowing Jack.

"I'm glad you're happy too," Jack said. "You deserve it more than anyone."

Jack looked older now. Getting clean hadn’t erased the new lines on his face or the smattering of gray in his hair. He was still too thin, and when he thought no one was watching him, his eyes filled with the shadows of past sorrow. But in every way that mattered he was the Jack Marc knew, the man he’d missed and mourned and believed in, the man he loved like a brother.


End file.
